A 26-minute video of a talk he gave on “Leadership in Crisis” at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School last month has garnered more than 18,600 page views and 4.5 stars.

That’s an impressive count for a 65-year-old investment banker vs. all those teenagers producing vulgar videos with their iPhones and Web cams.

Mack, however, did say something a lot of people wish they could say.

As the clock ticked on Wall Street’s meltdown in September 2008, he fired off an F-bomb to then-New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner — or so Mack recounts in the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9sQtmPAYO0.

Mack was trying to save his firm in fast-paced talks with Japanese investors, and Geithner wouldn’t leave him alone.

“Tim Geithner is on the phone and he wants to talk to you, now,” Mack recalls his secretary saying.

To which Mack said he responded: “Tell Tim Geithner to get —-ed.”

Hey, someone had to say it. Geithner, along with then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, were running up and down Wall Street like gods, deciding which firms would live and which would die, all in the name of saving the financial system.

Bear Stearns had imploded. Lehman Brothers was headed for bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch was disappearing into Bank of America Corp. And Morgan Stanley was facing “a classic run on the bank,” Mack said.

Morgan Stanley had just posted impressive earnings. Yet hedge funds were shorting its stock and buying up its credit default swaps, weakening its credit position and forcing its clearing banks to demand more collateral.

“We went into that week with $181 billion in cash,” Mack said. “Not in securities. Not in IBM stock. Cash. Because we knew there would be a run on the bank.”

Then came the unholy trinity of Geithner, Paulson and Bernanke on a conference call, insisting that Mack sell Morgan Stanley to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1 to avoid further market chaos.

Suddenly, however, Paulson changed course. “It’s not about Morgan Stanley. It’s about a global meltdown You need to find a partner,” Mack recounted Paulson saying.

Mack said he responded calmly: “I have the utmost respect for the three of you. What you do for this country makes you patriots. But I have 45,000 employees. I won’t do it. I’ll take the firm down. Click.”

Mack had already talked to major banks and investment houses, the Chinese, and Warren Buffett about a lifeline. He picked up the phone and resumed other discussions he had with Japanese investors. But Geithner kept calling him back, demanding a fire sale.

That’s when Mack — at this point feeling “wired” — asked his secretary to deliver the F-bomb.

“I had no fear of the three of them,” he said. “They were doing their job. I had to do my job.”

Mack had spent most of his career at Morgan Stanley, but he left in 2001 after a bitter power struggle. He returned to Morgan Stanley as CEO in 2005 and inherited most of its problems.

Morgan Stanley wasn’t in quite the trouble that Bear Stearns, Lehman, American International Group Inc. and others had gotten themselves into with credit default swaps and the reckless securitization of dicey mortgages. But this didn’t matter to regulators once Wall Street’s dominoes started to fall.

“When you take on big jobs you have a responsibility to do what you think is right,” Mack said, “and stand up sometimes when the odds are against you and people are pushing you.”

“There are enough stories you can read about in the paper where if people would have done that, they wouldn’t be in the pickle they are in now.”

“Don’t be pushed around when you know in your heart of hearts it’s the wrong thing to do.”

Mack will step down as CEO in January, but will continue as chairman. His firm survived the meltdown and recently returned to profitability.

It converted itself into a commercial bank and received nearly $24 billion from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. It also received, and has repaid, $10 billion from the Treasury’s Troubled Assets Relief Program.

“Seems a bit cavalier given his company’s reliance on government assistance to see it through this crisis,” said Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams of the expletive aimed at Geithner.

But that’s what it takes to be a star.

“In one month, this has become the fourth-most popular video that we have on our channel,” said Mukul Pandya executive director of Knowledge@Wharton, the school’s online journal, who posted the video.

Mack thought he was speaking to a private audience, said Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Jeanmarie McFadden. He didn’t consider that a video would go onto Wharton’s website and YouTube.

“It has kind of taken on a life of its own,” McFadden said.

But it’s been well-received: “We’ve had an incredible outreach from kids wanting to come to Morgan Stanley after that speech.”

More in Business

A prominent white nationalist is suing Twitter for banning his accounts at a time when social networks are trying to crack down on hateful and abusive content without appearing to censor unpopular opinions.

The social media service Twitter is believed to have suspended thousands of accounts for being automated bots, or for other policy violations, drawing outcry from fringe conservative media figures who lost followers in the move.

Two senior U.S. Geological Survey officials have stepped down after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke demanded that they provide his office with confidential data on the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska before it was released to the general public.